Access to all of our K12 Online Conference websites is critical. Providing translating tools for the predominantly English speaking
resources and including some translation in languages like Dutch, German, French would be a tremendous help to open the playing field for this year's conference. We would also like to provide technology resources that increase access to computers for people with disabilities. A lack of access to computers can create barriers. Awareness of those barriers should be foremost in our minds as we plan our everyday online activities. Check the resources, suggestions, and issues we have gathered for you to help make everyone welcome. Enjoy the conference!
~ Lee Baber, Kaj Reitberg, James Stanger, and Karen Janowski

General accessibilty Web sites:

Keep in mind several different kinds of browsers that might:

render web content as Braille,

using voice synthesis, read a web page through a speaker. Such a user agent (browser) might also be used by non-handicapped people to access the web in their car, while they're driving.

blow up the font size very large, for those with limited vision.

handle only text.

Additionally, there are also ways of specifying the language (English, Spanish, etc.) in use on a particular page. And this specification would be used by, e.g. a voice-synthesizer, to pick appropriate pronunciation.

When creating Web sites, keep the following in mind:

"In order to meet the standards, websites need to write text descriptions of pictures and multimedia files; need to be easily navigable using text commands, mouse, or keyboard alone; and should avoid frames and pop-up windows that screen readers can't translate, among other things. Remember, even when using Web 2.0 tools, you can make choices to help with accessibility.

WebXACT (formally known as Bobby) - is a free online service that lets you test single pages of web content for quality, accessibility, and privacy issues. The WebXACT accessibility checker is an automated tool enabling you to check some of the accessibility issues your web pages may have. However, like all automated accessibility checking tools, it must be used in conjunction with manual testing to gain a complete picture of the accessibility of your pages. For instance the tool will be able to check that there are no missing "alts" for images, but it will not be able to determine whether or not the alt text assigned is meaningful and appropriate. http://webxact.watchfire.com/

Text readability:

And don't just focus on technical accessibility. What about the cognitive dissonance caused by prose that is difficult to understand? Here's a site that purports to help folks make stuff easier to read: http://juicystudio.com/services/readability.php The tool might not be all that great, but using it might help raise questions about site readability.

From the Kings of Ruining Accessibility Everywhere (Adobe) Flash and PDF are major accessibility killers. Here are some tips from the creators themselves. http://www.adobe.com/accessibility/

Accessibar: For end users, but understanding how this tool works from the end user perspective helps teach about accessibility issues (e.g.,
font choice, text to speech recognition issues, Flash issues).

What should be a Firefox add-on, but is sold as a stand-alone product:

Accessibility issues due to presence of disabilities

http://www.odiogo.com/ - free text to speech for blog and other online text conversion, can be embedded in your blog (from the site - Here is how it works:
Odiogo downloads the latest articles from the registered RSS feed. It extracts the relevant text from the page and converts it into a high quality spoken-word MP3 file that can be listened to on an iPod, MP3 player, phone or the PC. It's that simple and powerful!)

graphical verification (such as Captcha) prevents users who are blind from commenting on blog posts - alternative is WP Gatekeeper at http://meyerweb.com/eric/tools/wordpress/wp-gatekeeper.html/
WP-Gatekeeper is a comment-spam defense plugin for WordPress 1.5. Upon installing it, a challenge will automatically be added to comment forms: "What color is an orange?". In order to post, the commenter must enter the correct answer. The strength of Gatekeeper is that it allows you to create any number of challenges you like, and picks one at random to insert into the comment form. You can also define your own markup template as well as manually place the challenge in your comment forms, should you so desire.

This is the translated article bij freetranslation.com: So you can see how it translates Dutch into English. But I rewrote the conclusion.

[http://k12onlineconference.org/?p=84 De k12 conference]K12 the conference is an online conference which is kept previous year for the first time. K12 the conference lasts 2 weeks. It is an online conference, where all participants do their tale by means of the Internet. They place their presentations online. These presentations are placed in wiki. All people who have interest in these presentations can download that and examine. A very skilful manner of to present because you do not need be present and is there very interesting find information. And also once more free. K12 the primary school and middle education are. 12 Beats on all groups which it covers. If I have it well it has been counted as from 4 years. K12 it is used in the English-speaking person land. The presentations will be thus in English. Thereby the web-unwieldly and the wiki of the conference are in English. There after to look that the language uses on the web-unwieldly and the wiki also understandable is for people whom English less well understand vertaalmachines will be installed.

Vertaalmachines belong to my idea to the accessibility of a Internet site. By you can offering such services people also more reach. That is of course also the intention of an online conference, because the physical aanwezigheidsbarriére are (this, however, well Dutch? According to me it makes, however, clear what I mean.) is not there. I have submitted an application to help. On the web-unwieldly of k12 the conference several people were asked to help with a number of matter, among which accessibility. We work with 3 people for the accessibility of k12 the conference. To the communication well to let gone work we in Google Docs. In Google Docs a text appears our progress and agreements which we have made to note. I find it nice with Google Docs work at last once. I had already once tried it on my own school, but there need the colleagues not yet. Thus is possible it I then nevertheless. We have agreed that I keep myself busy with the vertaalmachines. I never use them and weet therefore not what is there and which well is. For this reason firstly gezocht on Internet to vertaalmachines and not to vertaalprogramma's because that is something else (came I therefore behind). At zoeken I have paid attention or them from English translating. They frequently have possibilities still more, but k12 the conference is in English and for this reason is translation from English important.

The following online vertaalmachines came I against:

Babelfish of Altavista; translated texts and complete web pages. It is available for very many languages, certainly from English. Babelfish are add also to a site.

Free translation; texts translated and complete web pages from English to several languages. Have also professional solutions, but for that pay you thus. There is the possibility the Google of downloading tool bar of their site and thereby sits then freetransaltion.com. but if you the Google have tool bar already you can add buds for translating. Furthermore you can add their tool to your Internet site, several possibilities are, as it happens, with a tool which translated in several languages or translated with a text risky that of 1 language to 1 language. Such a text link I Right has placed bovenin to translate my site to English. Try once from!

Systran; translated texts and complete web pages.There many languages assist. They have also professional possibilities. I can find no possibilities on the Internet site to place your Internet site it.

Google; at Google I come on a page where a text or a web page can be translated. There are several languages in which are possible the translation and from which is possible it, but I miss Dutch. Moreover several languages in Beta are. It is possible Google Translation browser button in your favourites put rule, then a page is translated from 1 language to 1 language. But also none Dutch. It is not possible this in a Internet site incorporate.

Microsoft; at Microsoft come you on a page where can let your texts and Internet sites translate. There several languages assist, among which Dutch. It is not possible this incorporate in a Internet site. For refer on the site to Systran if you translate software want buy.

Conclusion:

I did find a few online translation-machines. But only Babelfish and freetranslation.com can be put into a website. I think that's the best way to do it, because then you give visitors already the tool into their hands and that makes it for the visitor easier. If it is easier then people will stay on the website.

My questions and ideas about this topic.
Would it be good to have on the wiki and/ or weblog?:
- a link to software or a program that can read the text on the wiki.( and a manual how it works)
- translation possibilities of the wiki, like on edtechtalk.
- rss-feed on the wiki
- possibilty of getting email (there are people who don't use and understand rss-feed) when there is something new on the weblog or the wiki.